'Spotlight: artist Sarah Cunningham' - The Wick

29 February 2024

You can easily get lost in the wild gestures of Sarah Cunningham’s paintings, which evoke imaginary forestscapes and kaleidoscopic environments. That was certainly the experience of her champion for The Wick, Elissa Goldstone, when she first encountered her work at her Royal College of Art degree show a few years ago. “I was utterly absorbed by her use of paint and her approach to her canvas,” says the Lisson Gallery director.

The artist builds up layer upon layer of colour until finally her bucolic visions emerge. Her fluid scenes are currently in the Lisson group show, Accordion Fields (until 4 May), alongside those of Varda Caivano, Dexter Dalwood and Pam Evelyn, among others. Together they explore the indeterminate, liminal and multi-dimensional notions of space, influenced by London, the city in which they all studied.

Goldstone says: “Sarah creates a very honest and charged experience in her paintings. They engage in a deeply expressive language that I would describe as ‘the familiar’ – like a universally experienced moment captured in all its vast and wild ways. She really pushes her practice and responds to what transpires in the process, which I love.”

Read in full via The Wick.